LETTERS

Wind-energy project generates blowback

Concerning the 112 wind turbines that are planned for Ocotillo at the base of the mountains near El Centro (“Bracing for winds of change,” June 12): My only experience is seeing a line of 15 of them next to Interstate 8 on a ridge across from an Indian casino while on my way over the mountains to Phoenix and my return to San Diego a few times each year. Four out of five times there are usually three or four that are not working.

I believe that this wind generation for electricity is a loser, and will present lots of misery for a lot of people who have to live around these monstrous, ugly contraptions. Do not agree to this escalation of use until all the facts are on the table. It may be another U.S. government “Solyndra bust,” and we the taxpayers will pay the bill.

Earle Callahan

Coronado

These people should be very thankful it isn’t nuclear power plants! I totally fear the San Onofre power plant. I live not too far, and I’d rather have wind turbines right next to me than that nuclear power plant.

Maria Pollack

Oceanside

Bullet train pluses

I don’t understand the reasoning behind your strong opposition against the construction of a north-south fast train service in California (“What fuels Brown bullet-train fixation,” Editorial, June 12, and similar comments in earlier editions).

A north-south fast train service will help not just California but the entire country in numerous ways:

1. It will absorb a large amount of freeway traffic, thus eliminating the need for adding more and more lanes onto the existing freeways that create an unintended concrete jungle.

2. It will create, directly and indirectly, thousands of new jobs not just in California but the entire U.S.

3. By using clean energy (electric power), the train will go a long way in reducing the need for hydrocarbon fuels and thereby improve air quality.

Mian Hashmi

Lakeside

Obscured mission

Patrick Velasquez (Letters, June 12) made me shake my head in disbelief. While George Will (“Subprime educations,” Opinion, June 10) is out of touch with what is happening on today’s colleges, he is right on the money when he questions the intellectual and economic worth of courses and majors in (whatever) studies. Identity politics/propaganda is now the norm on college campuses, leading to the deep guilt of white students and the harmful sense of pride and hostility of nonwhites.

The fact is that Western thought, literature, culture and technical accomplishments are being ignored or vilified in our educational institutions and the dubious scholarship of ethnic and gender studies are playing a large role in the division and hostility among Americans for the other side of the argument.

Diversity education, rather than preparing students with critical and technical skills, results in underprepared graduates.

Josef Horowitz

Escondido

In response to “Borrowing for college the new angst” (Opinion, June 10): It is time to rethink the reasons for the skyrocketing costs associated with a college education.